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wateroverfire posted:Ok. Those are sort of 3 very different questions so maybe one at a time, we could talk about. There is an economic argument that says that it is much better, given two people, for each of them to focus on maximising the utility of their labour by focusing mainly on what they are good at. However, things start to get tricky when everyone present is good at the same thing, and nobody is good at something necessary. In the standard desert island scenario, it's not good for social cohesion for the two people who are good at and enjoy fishing to have the one who is less good at fishing always being the one who goes foraging, which they both hate and neither is good at. This is where it becomes worth introducing the distinction between work and chore. A chore is something that nobody wants to do, but that has to be done. Chores shouldn't be what any one person has to spend their work energy doing - they should be assigned in such a way that the burden is fairly shared out, in such a way that the job is done with as little stress and effort as is needed to do it. So I don't think you make somebody "the garbage person". You can put this on rotation, have everybody who can take their turn doing the garbage, and you appeal to a common sense of fairness and appropriate docking of someone's privileges if they don't do it when it's their turn and the have no excuse. And, if there's somebody who for reasons of health or ability just can't do the garbage, they do the dishes more often, or look after the bills; something else that means they're still doing their bit. I don't see why national service couldn't be used in a similar way, as long as everyone in society is part of the system and you don't get to buy yourself out of it by virtue of your income or status.
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# ? Jun 1, 2019 09:44 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 02:36 |
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Admittedly, it is arguable that it is best to match the skills and potential of an individual to a task, and that specialization has its benefits. The question is if the livelihood of a person should depend on that criteria. It also gets back to the issue of skills and wages. The Soviets, in all honesty, had a bit of an issue with this since many of their scientific and cultural workers had a reason to want to live the country for solely economic benefit (and much of the politics of this followed behind). If anything the big issue of emigration itself was simply that many of the most educated and talented people didn't have a reason to stay in the Soviet Union besides the government not allowing them to emigrate. There is a point where you very well may have to accept some inequality for the sake of national interest, the question is how to control it so it doesn't become the Bay Area.
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# ? Jun 1, 2019 11:29 |
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Alternatively this is a good argument against socialism in one country as if there are no imperialist pigdogs to move to, you have no reason to move
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# ? Jun 1, 2019 13:51 |
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Not being an anti-intelectual, fascist hellhole would also help.
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# ? Jun 1, 2019 18:05 |
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MixMastaTJ posted:Do you actually think neoliberals are Machiavellian geniuses constantly scheming how to make the poor suffer? They're apathetic to the wellbeing of the poor and exist in a system that rewards them for causing suffering. They don't give a poo poo if UBI is good or bad for the poor, it will increase consumption, which is good for the economy, which they like. I think that this question is important enough to warrant answering at some length. Despite that length there are some necessary simplifications in what follows since I want to get a basic point across that might be helpful for how we understand each other. Capitalists have predictable incentives that emerge naturally from the way our economy is structured and from their place within that structure. One of the key ones is a struggle over control of the workplace and the surplus that is produced in the workplace. Since policies that increase the social wage also increase both the bargaining power of workers and the tax obligation of capitalists, there is a strong incentive for capitalists to use their political power to try and reduce the overall security of working people. This observation does not depend upon any psychological theory about the mind of the capitalist (though plausible arguments for a psychological theory of reactionary politics have been proposed). It is simply the nature of a class society that there will be a continual tug of war over the distribution of the surplus between those who own and those who work. (Lest this be misunderstood as some kind of vulgar marxist analysis, let's pause to emphasize that this struggle is often submerged into or become an adjunct of other forms of social conflict, such as that between the sex, old and young, different ethnicities, religions or most significantly in North America, between different races etc.) For this reason, the classical liberals clearly and explicitly argued that, as Mandeville put it: Bernard de Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees posted:It would be easier, where property is well secured, to live without money than without poor; for who would do the work?... As they [the poor] ought to be kept from starving, so they should receive nothing worth saving. lf here and there one of the lowest class by uncommon industry, and pinching his belly, lifts himself above the condition he was brought up in nobody ought to hinder him; nay, it is undeniably the wisest course for every person in the society, and for every private family to be frugal; but it is the interest of all rich nations, that the greatest part of the poor should almost never be idle, and yet continually spend what they get... Those that get their living by their daily labour... have nothing to stir them up to be serviceable but their wants which it is prudence to relieve, but folly to cure. The only thing then that can render the labouring man industrious, is a moderate quantity of money, for as too little will, according as his temper is, either dispirit or make him desperate, so too much will make him insolent and lazy... From what has been said, it is manifest, that, in a free nation, where slaves are not allowed of, the surest wealth consists in a multitude of laborious poor; for besides, that they are the never-failing nursery of fleets and armies, without them there could be no enjoyment, and no product of any country could be valuable."To make the society" [which of course consists of non-workers] "happy and people easier under the meanest circumstances, it is requisite that great numbers of them should be ignorant as well as poor; knowledge both enlarges and multiplies our desires, and the fewer things a man wishes for, the more easily his necessities may be supplied. What Mandeville wrote in the 18th century - a sentiment echoed by numerous other liberals in the intervening centuries - remains true today. Capitalism requires a large class of labourers who are kept above the bare minimum of subsistence but prevented from accumulating sufficient savings to become genuinely economically independent. This dynamic helps to explain why Keynesian demand management and the expansion of the welfare state tend to be opposed by capitalists even in circumstances where such policies have been shown to prevent economic depressions and to stabilize or even raise the rate of profit. Under conditions where a rapid increase in the wealth of society or the successful struggles of workers and their organizations leads to a rise in labour's share of the social surplus you tend to start to see increasing demands for even higher wages, better working conditions, more leisure time, etc. This occurred in the latter half of the capitalist 'golden age' that followed World War II, contributing to the economic crisis of the 1970s and the implementation of what we now tend to call "neoliberal" policy solutions, most of which involved destroying worker organizations, taming inflation by halting and reversing wage increases through high interest rates, and lowering the social wage to choke off further bouts of worker militancy. As that analysis should imply, any advances by workers remain vulnerable as long as capitalists hold the majority of the political power within the system. That's why any abstract theoretical policy, whether it be a basic income or socialized healthcare or rent control - is only as good as the movement of people and organizations that is pushing for it. Because as soon as these policies become genuinely effective they'll generate resistance, since anything that significantly raises the living standards of workers has implications for their capitalist employers. In circumstances where it becomes important for a given fragment of the working class to have its living standards elevated (as was the case for some manufacturing workers in the past, or some tech workers now) this increase is paid for by a lowering of living standards among the rest of the population. This adds an additional calculation that we need to make: what specific reform proposals best enhance the fighting spirit and power of the working class. What policies are most defensible once enacted? And for reasons already outlined in this thread I think basic income is actually pretty weak on those fronts. It would certainly have potential uses, especially if we are imaging a purely technocratic world in which policies can be enacted outside the realm of petty class politics. Given the real world constraints we have to operate under, however, I think a basic income actually turns out to be a weak policy. The reason it gets so much support from parts of the capitalist class is precisely because it's so nonthreatening. It's a policy that can be carefully calibrated to adjust the social wage just enough to keep workers alive and consuming, and in the event it actually starts to enhance their bargaining power its very easy to reduce it. While something like socialized healthcare involves creating huge groups of (typically unionized) government employees and provides benefits that everyone in society uses, literally every realistic proposal for a basic income turns it into a means tested welfare program. I'm not as categorically opposed to the idea of a basic income as I might seem in the context of this thread but I find that it tends to be accompanied by dangerous levels of wishful or even delusional thinking. People seem to cling to it as a substitute for developing an actual critique of capitalism. It gets turned into a magical catch all solution that somehow won't be subject to the kind of opposition that any other increase to the social wage would generate. But as I've tried to argue, the reason it might generate less opposition is exactly because the people advocating it doesn't threaten their power in the way that policies like socialized medicine or even a jobs guarantee. Bundy posted:It absolutely is the solution to our predicament. If we don't start producing and consuming less and soon, the planet is going to brush us off like the infestation we've become. The one percent can either choose to share, or be made to share when enough people realise what's at stake. No, the solution to our predicament involves lowering the levels of consumption in the first world but we're still going to be massively reliant on a global system of production to keep people alive and to respond to the already irreversible consequences of climate change.
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# ? Jun 1, 2019 20:04 |
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Absolutely there are a thousand ways to do UBI terribly. A bill that says "Give everyone 1000 bucks" is trash. The amount needs to be a livable wage, needs to automatically adjust for inflation and needs to be trivially easy to receive. And as I said starting this- UBI AND chipping away at private markets. But a good UBI bill should be a single fight. Each markets going to have to be attacked individually- look at the massive fight we've been going through in the U.S. to decommoditize healthcare. The fight to decommoditize housing isn't about to get easier. And try winning a single vote in the rust belt with the platform "get rid of the agriculture industry!" I wouldn't consider UBI even remotely a death knell of capitalism- it's one of many steps and one I think is relatively easy to attain and will help a lot of people.
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# ? Jun 1, 2019 20:59 |
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UBI will not be a step towards abolishing capitalism; on the contrary, it is going to strengthen capitalist power and systemic entrenchment through weakening the organisational impetus of the workers, contributing to the atomisation of society and channeling welfare policy through commercial markets all this in addition to the hundred practical difficulties previously listed. for a socialist, UBI is a *bad policy* under capitalism and certainly not a main policy target
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 11:36 |
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V. Illych L. posted:weakening the organisational impetus of the workers Please explain this phrase? I'm not sure what it means when you say it.
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 12:42 |
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Somfin posted:Please explain this phrase? I'm not sure what it means when you say it. the less important a negotiated work situation is, the less the worker is incentivised to band together and form solidarity with their fellows this is the thinking behind e.g. norway having no national minimum wage - if one adds that, there's an officially sanctioned 'standard' for payment, which will inevitably be used to undermine the unions' collective bargaining power and the strength of workers' organisations, which remain the big source of left-wing power
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 13:33 |
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You could just say accelerationism.
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 13:40 |
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no, that is making things worse to trigger a revolution. i'm keen on making positive reforms, but they must be made witg the utmost cynicism and, crucially, with an eye to strengthening the left strategically so that such reforms may be safeguarded. blairism as a tendency forgot about this and sacrificed their power base for making people's lives better now and in concordance with the current power structure; this was a Very Bad idea
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 13:46 |
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Sorry "acceleration-but-only-due-to-gravity-ism".
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 13:51 |
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V. Illych L. posted:the less important a negotiated work situation is Okay, and this phrase, please? I think you're driving at something but I think you're worried about stating it outright. Like, surely, by your reasoning, "making a negotiated work situation more important" would be a positive, but I'm not actually sure what that would entail.
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 14:01 |
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OwlFancier posted:Sorry "acceleration-but-only-due-to-gravity-ism". you're the one who's keen on abandoning socialism as a project for temporary and fragile boosts to living standards; i'm just saying that we should design our policy with an eye toward larger goals and political sustainability. part of this is not reducing the incentives workers have to organise and engage politically, even when this goes against the interests of some unorganised workers politics isn't easy when you're fighting against the most pervasive and well-funded system ever; we simply cannot afford not to think strategically about these things
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 14:14 |
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V. Illych L. posted:this is the thinking behind e.g. norway having no national minimum wage - if one adds that, there's an officially sanctioned 'standard' for payment, which will inevitably be used to undermine the unions' collective bargaining power and the strength of workers' organisations, which remain the big source of left-wing power American labor unions recognize this implicitly. SEIU for example lobbied to be exempt from LA's $15 minimum wage.
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 14:15 |
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V. Illych L. posted:reducing the incentives workers have to organise and engage politically This sounds like you'd be fine deliberately and explicitly hurting a whole hell of a lot of vulnerable people to make sure that workers are also hurt, so that they do what you want them to do Like beating and starving a dog to make it fighty, so that you can sic it on someone you don't like
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 14:24 |
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Yes but have you considered that you're actually doing everyone a favour by Doesn't matter how many people want improvements and work for them that's the wrong kind of organization you see.
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 14:29 |
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Somfin posted:Okay, and this phrase, please? I think you're driving at something but I think you're worried about stating it outright. in some situations, it can mean opposition to minimum wage situations; this should absolutely only be done in sectors and situations where it's feasible to impose collective bargaining, of course. UBI means that people are much less likely to stand and fight, even in the best of cases, which means that people's work situations become even more transient, which hampers organisation - there's very little positive that UBI accomplishes here which isn't done better by a decent unemployment benefit, and the latter is much easier to achieve basically, the more important collective bargaining - and consequently, the greater the room for flexibility in negotiations - the better. this has also got many, many pitfalls as can be seen in e.g. america, where they've got great room for negotiation and also basically killed worker's organisations stone dead, and in scandinavia where the left is in a sort of permanent defensive, but it is the only way I can see to build a somewhat sustainable welfare system - certainly an UBI would be the death of such a strategy to be clear, i am not advocating simply abolishing all minimum wage sectors here; in many cases, it is simply not feasible to organise these workers imminently, and they may be captured at the voting booth by a minimum wage scheme. however, a universal minimum wage imposed solely by the state is also not great policy because it takes away a lot of the incentive to organise. what they're doing in norway is impose minimum wages sectorwise and basing that on the union rates in that sector. this means that people are more aware of the role of the unions in their living standards while also keeping wages from becoming ludicrously low, in general. this is also not perfect; e.g call-centre workers are mercilessly exploited because the employers have successfully blocked such a minimum wage for now. however, i do think it's the only general approach that makes sense from a socialist perspective
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 14:36 |
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V. Illych L. posted:call-centre workers are mercilessly exploited because the employers have successfully blocked such a minimum wage for now Wait, isn't this a good thing, going by your other posts? I'm confused.
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 14:48 |
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Somfin posted:Wait, isn't this a good thing, going by your other posts? I'm confused. no, of course not, people being worse off is obviously not a good thing - thence there being a need to impose minimum wages in some cases, but that must also be done as intelligently as possible so as not to undermine class consciousness and unionisation
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 14:54 |
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V. Illych L. posted:no, of course not, people being worse off is obviously not a good thing - thence there being a need to impose minimum wages in some cases, but that must also be done as intelligently as possible so as not to undermine class consciousness and unionisation But shouldn't they see that the unionized groups are getting better wages and thus begin unionizing?
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 17:27 |
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MixMastaTJ posted:But shouldn't they see that the unionized groups are getting better wages and thus begin unionizing? ideally yes, but some concessions must be made to the material difficulty of organising certain sectors or businesses, where lots of businesses have marginal revenues and so unionising will drive places out of business, creating a trap which can only be fairly resolved by imposition from outside there is little policy that may be discussed in pure abstraction, and implementations will always be messy, and a policy must be considered in terms of realistic implementation in order to make sense - one size may not fit all
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 18:26 |
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V. Illych L. posted:some concessions must be made to the material difficulty of organising certain sectors or businesses, where lots of businesses have marginal revenues and so unionising will drive places out of business Put this in concrete terms. What workers should not unionise because of how it'll hurt struggling small business owners?
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 22:11 |
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Somfin posted:Put this in concrete terms. What workers should not unionise because of how it'll hurt struggling small business owners? some workers will not want to unionise because they're in a hypercompetitive market and a union contract will, they are credibly told by management, cause the firm to be uncompetitive, costing them their jobs i obviously think they *should* always call management's bluff here, but in practice people often don't, and in some sectors this is endemic; for a specific example, i led a failed attempt to unionise the bar i used to tend which died on the fear of the business going down and everyone losing their jobs. in cases like this, where the conditions are so bad that unionisation is de facto not possible, a union-mandated minimum wage should be imposed to weed out the weakest businesses, make the tables a little more even and reduce the gap between union and non-union places to make the competitive effect smaller, and thus minimising the perceived risk of unionising one cannot be absolutist, but one must have a clear analysis of the circumstances and an overarching goal to work towards - in my case, socialism. lacking this, we will be outmanouevered by our opponent who is much advantaged in terms of position and resources, but weaker in natural manpower. margaret thatcher made a whole generation houseowners to tie their interests to the property markets, making many of them loyal conservatives. we must be equally shrewd and make people socialists, by hook or crook, which means being very careful about our policy objectives and our implementation
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 22:29 |
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i'd also be much obliged if you'd engage more substantively with the posted content rather than resort to bollocks like 'small business owners ' cos you know full well that it has nothing to do with my reasoning
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 22:31 |
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V. Illych L. posted:i'd also be much obliged if you'd engage more substantively with the posted content rather than resort to bollocks like 'small business owners ' cos you know full well that it has nothing to do with my reasoning Let me quote you here V. Illych L. posted:lots of businesses have marginal revenues and so unionising will drive places out of business And then here V. Illych L. posted:i led a failed attempt to unionise the bar i used to tend which died on the fear of the business going down and everyone losing their jobs It sounds to me like your hesitancy to embrace full and universal unionisation is coming from a fairly personal place of having failed in the past. Would you agree with that? If not, would you say that your failed attempt to unionise a bar has had any lasting impact on how you view unionisation in general?
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 23:11 |
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no, it would not be fair to say that
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# ? Jun 2, 2019 23:25 |
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V. Illych L. posted:no, it would not be fair to say that But you do think that some places, like small businesses in the hospitality industry, can't be unionised. This is despite hospitality having exceptions to a minimum wage. You believe that a minimum wage weakens unions. And their employees having lovely underpaid lives, which you have suggested in previous posts is probably a good thing because it increases how much they need to unionise. And this is based on your failed attempt to unionise one (1) bar.
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# ? Jun 3, 2019 00:52 |
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Somfin posted:But you do think that some places, like small businesses in the hospitality industry, can't be unionised. this is an incorrect and uncharitable reading of my position
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# ? Jun 3, 2019 05:35 |
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V. Illych L. posted:this is an incorrect and uncharitable reading of my position It's not my job to make better arguments for your position than you do. I don't think you have a position that can be described charitably. Also "incorrect" and "uncharitable" are somewhat contradictory as criticisms; am I being mean to your arguments, or am I genuinely wrong about them?
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# ? Jun 3, 2019 07:19 |
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Somfin posted:It's not my job to make better arguments for your position than you do. I don't think you have a position that can be described charitably. do you not know what 'charitable' means in the context of formal argument or are you being deliberately obtuse here
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# ? Jun 3, 2019 07:23 |
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V. Illych L. posted:do you not know what 'charitable' means in the context of formal argument or are you being deliberately obtuse here Please, explain it to me.
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# ? Jun 3, 2019 07:31 |
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
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# ? Jun 3, 2019 07:34 |
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What is a specific example of a workforce that shouldn't unionize? Like say "McDonalds" or "Xerox" or some actual business that should not unionize.
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# ? Jun 3, 2019 07:38 |
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Oh, I saw that. I wanted you to explain to me where I was "uncharitable" with my assessment of your position.
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# ? Jun 3, 2019 07:42 |
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twodot posted:What is a specific example of a workforce that shouldn't unionize? Like say "McDonalds" or "Xerox" or some actual business that should not unionize. i have no idea where you're getting 'should' from my position, i'm saying that there are businesses that are difficult to unionise for various reasons and that in these cases a minimum wage approach is humane and might make unionisation more realistic it is, in fact, an overriding principle of policy for me to increase worker organsation and this is one of the reasons i oppose UBI. clearly i've not expressed this properly since it is such a sticking point
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# ? Jun 3, 2019 07:43 |
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V. Illych L. posted:clearly i've not expressed this properly since it is such a sticking point You have expressed this part clearly. The part that amazes all of us is that your logic goes like so: 1. Suffering workers are more likely to unionise 2. UBI will reduce suffering 3. UBI will therefore reduce unionisation 4. Therefore UBI must be opposed It's entirely logical but also monstrous.
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# ? Jun 3, 2019 07:46 |
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V. Illych L. posted:i have no idea where you're getting 'should' from my position, i'm saying that there are businesses that are difficult to unionise edit: Also answer the question! Name even one workforce that shouldn't unionize! twodot fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Jun 3, 2019 |
# ? Jun 3, 2019 07:46 |
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Somfin posted:Oh, I saw that. I wanted you to explain to me where I was "uncharitable" with my assessment of your position. well there's assuming that i was referring to something other than the principle of charity when i talked about an uncharitable interpretation, for one also the whole faux-socratic style of tedious questioning where you impose some bizarre psychological reason for my position rather than my stated arguments, or, if you will, asserting my fundamental irrationality
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# ? Jun 3, 2019 07:48 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 02:36 |
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twodot posted:Why in the gently caress should anyone give a poo poo about this unless it results in unionizing those businesses being bad? If the answer is "unionizing those businesses are difficult, but worthwhile", then we should unionize them regardless of difficulty! there is no workforce that *shouldn't* unionise and i again have no idea where you're getting this from, it's a complete red herring
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# ? Jun 3, 2019 07:50 |